George Lucas Educational Foundation

Deepening Academic Understanding With Tangible Experiences

By providing middle school students a chance to walk in someone else’s shoes, teachers can help them develop empathy—and a stronger connection to content.

November 15, 2023

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Books offer the opportunity to step into someone else’s world, and middle school ELA teacher Jennifer Montgomery’s seventh-grade class did just that during their book study of Linda Sue Park’s A Long Walk to Water. In a Socratic seminar, students discussed how the author builds empathy for the characters, whose lives are playing out during two different time periods in Sudan. But to bring the book’s themes to life for her classroom in Eminence, Kentucky, Montgomery had her middle school students do their own walk—traveling a mile while carrying a jug filled with water. In the discussion that followed, students shared their own reflections and insights, emerging from this exploration with a stronger sense of empathy—and a solid experience of perspective-taking that will stick with them for years to come.

To learn more about the research behind the practices seen in the video, check out the links below. 

Schools That Work

Eminence Independent Schools

Public, Rural
Grades K–12
Eminence, KY

Edutopia developed the Making Learning More Playful series with support from The LEGO Foundation.

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Filed Under

  • Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)
  • Student Engagement
  • English Language Arts
  • 6-8 Middle School
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